St Mirren Football Club’s Junior Academy will be holding an open trial for players born in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 (including goalkeepers) on Sunday 27th October.

Players interested in trying out for their local professional football club can come along to the club’s exclusive indoor astroturf venue at the St Mirren Airdome. The hour long sessions will consist of small sided games for young players to show off their skills.

The Junior Academy links the Community Department to the Youth Department at St Mirren Football Club, creating a pathway for young players to Pro Youth Football.

Players born in 2005 and 2006 – 11:00am-12:00pm – registration at 10:45am at the Community Office (situated in the North Stand adjacent to the St Mirren Airdome)

Players born in 2007 and 2008 – 12:00pm-1:00pm – registration at 11:45am at the Community Office (situated in the North Stand adjacent to the St Mirren Airdome)

If your son is interested in attending, please send his name, year of birth and a contact number to [email protected]

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Main problem with Scottish football imo. Kevin Bridges actually hit the nail on the head when he talked about the mental manager standing at the side screaming abuse at the weans.

Should be all about technique, fun and learning to control the ball at that age. This "win at all costs" attitude breeds bad behaviours.

Totally disagree,worse thing that's ever been done in 7 a side non competitive football that the kids now play. It's an utter nonsense,get back to 11 a side knocking f**k out each other and breed winners.

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Totally disagree,worse thing that's ever been done in 7 a side non competitive football that the kids now play. It's an utter nonsense,get back to 11 a side knocking f**k out each other and breed winners.

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Totally disagree,worse thing that's ever been done in 7 a side non competitive football that the kids now play. It's an utter nonsense,get back to 11 a side knocking f**k out each other and breed winners.

arse wipe

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Yip! There's far too much emphasis on winning instead of enjoyin guys like Stuart Dickson with experience of getting the best out of kids and making the kids enjoy their sport first and foremost. No wonder there are so many professional sportsmen/women who can't be gracious in defeat. I mean, they can't all suffer from the classic "single child syndrome" now can they?

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Totally disagree,worse thing that's ever been done in 7 a side non competitive football that the kids now play. It's an utter nonsense,get back to 11 a side knocking f**k out each other and breed winners.

You want 5 to 8 year old kids playing 11 a side football ? No wonder football in this country is in the current state that it's in, if people have your attitude.

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Yes I do,games that mean something too. Competitive leagues and cups I want to see tough challenges and players with fight.

I understand your viewpoint but kids of 5 to 8 years should be playing non competitive 4 a side games. With the main emphasis on learning basic skills like ball control and actually enjoying the whole experience.

Not being isolated on a huge pitch playing eleven a side with a ball thats too heavy, and with so many kids on the pitch they very rarely get a touch of the ball, and spend most of the time running around in a big clutch chasing the ball.

They have years ahead of them and plenty of time to develope into competitive and hungry players .

In my experience they didn't really care if they won. It was all about finding players, developing players, trying them in different positions and making sure everyone got equal game time.

And also seeing which opposition players they could spot...

Go to Ferguslie on a Saturday morning and watch the 2004s and you will see the above to be wrong. Is it right that 8 and 9 yr olds train 4 times a week and play 2 games on a Saturday and sometimes play a Sunday too?

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Go to Ferguslie on a Saturday morning and watch the 2004s and you will see the above to be wrong. Is it right that 8 and 9 yr olds train 4 times a week and play 2 games on a Saturday and sometimes play a Sunday too?

I spent a number of years going to Ferguslie and it was training twice a week and one game on a Sat.

Maybe times have changed.

Not sure what is wrong with boys playing as much football as they can?

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I understand your viewpoint but kids of 5 to 8 years should be playing non competitive 4 a side games. With the main emphasis on learning basic skills like ball control and actually enjoying the whole experience.

While I agree with your point about full size pitches and 11 a side, not so sure I agree about games being non competitive.

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I've no qualms about St Mirren running a community side - indeed it makes sense to have teams play in local leagues where coaches can assess opposition players without attempting to poach them - but there's a few issues in that article that immediately ring alarms bells for me.

1. Why trials? Why not just first come, first served? Seriously what do they expect to find amongst five year olds that will set them out as future professional footballers? At those age groups it should be about trialling the coaches ability, not the players ability. Coaches should be proving at those age groups that they can progress and develop every child they work with whilst making training and playing fun for the kids. Not assessing kids abilities and turning them away as failures at the age of 5 FFS.

2. Why claim that this is a pathway to Pro Youth Football? It's obviously utter shite. You cannot claim it's a pathway unless you can guarantee that the majority of the kids coming through the squad will go to the Pro Youth squad - and you can't possibly know that until you've seen how a five year old progresses through to the point where pro youth football begins - even then coaches of pro youth squads are continually getting their selections wrong. How many pro youth clubs are turning over a number of players year on year as it becomes clear that there are better players out there?

St Mirren should have looked at the Falkirk in the Community model where their teams are being run as you would do any youth club. Instead it looks to me like St Mirren have chosen to follow all of the worst practices that have been going on at Airdrie Boys Club.

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11 kids so far have left Wishaw Wycombe 98's to go Pro Youth. I spoke to the Motherwell chief scout just two weeks ago about one of our now ex players (he signed for Clyde last week) and he spoke about how well some of our ex players are doing at Pro Youth level. In his words we have two who are on the brink of first team football at Motherwell - both are 15 years old. We've got a starlet at Celtic who will definitely make it. And two other lads - one at Airdrie and one at Dunfermline - are players he regrets not having signed because they are absolute stand outs.

We've had to rebuild our squad three times because of the progression of our players and we've still got scouts fighting over some of our players - who still have a 100% league record after 8 games.

You can laugh it up Oaksoft - I'll only ever claim to have played a small part in those kids progression, there has been plenty of people involved in their development. But none the less our achievements have been well recognised in the LFDA leagues and the whole club's success in being a regular production line has been well recognised by scouts from all over Scotland.